U.S. Proposes Gnatcatcher Habitat

Prodded by a federal court order, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed Friday designating nearly 800,000 acres of land throughout Southern California as protected habitat for the threatened gnatcatcher.

The proposal would give federal wildlife authorities the ability to scrutinize certain activities within the protected area that could drive away or harm the California songbird that typically makes its home beneath coastal sagebrush.

Environmentalists have been pushing for such a move for seven years, but many were displeased with the proposal, in part because it provides no clear-cut boundaries.

“It’s basically smoke and mirrors,” said Andrew Wetzler, an attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, which helped bring about the lawsuit that led to Friday’s designation. “This is yet another example of Fish and Wildlife Services basically doing everything possible to avoid complying with what is a very clear statute.”

Federal authorities, conceding that they were forced to act by the court order, also criticized the proposal. The designation process is too costly, they said, especially with the California songbird already enjoying protected status.

“There is little additional benefit of designating critical habitat. When a species is listed [as endangered or threatened], a species is protected,” said Ken Berg, field supervisor with the service’s regional office in Carlsbad. “Designating critical habitat has such a small, marginal benefit that we have not believed it is worth the cost and time it takes.”

Some experts say that the designation could help derail pending development projects throughout the Southland, including the construction of a controversial 16-mile toll road in South Orange County. Foothill South toll road officials, however, say the plan would have no impact on their project.

The plan sets aside 799,916 acres throughout Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, San Bernardino and Riverside counties, and would be in addition to existing wildlife preserves and other areas previously set aside as gnatcatcher habitat.

Some groups say that the plan is an important step forward if it can lead to blocking future habitat-destroying developments.

“It should have been done a long time ago,” said Dan Silver, coordinator of the Endangered Habitats League.

The federal agency also announced a series of public hearings to be held in this month in Anaheim, San Diego and Riverside. After receiving input from the public, the agency will study the proposal’s economic impacts. The agency is expected to make a final decision on the proposal in September.

In 1993, the gnatcatcher was listed as a threatened species, which required the federal government to act to protect its habitat.

But Fish and Wildlife officials declined to do that. They cited reports of panicked landowners destroying coastal sage habitat to avoid restriction of development.

Federal officials said they instead favored a “habitat conservation planning” approach, which allows developers to clear-cut protected plants and destroy the homes of protected animals if they compensate by preserving similar habitats elsewhere.

Environmentalists sued. They lost the first round of the legal battle, but in 1997, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in their favor.

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A Proposal Without Teeth?

The Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed designating nearly 800,000 acres as critical habitat for the threatened gnatcatcher. But environmentalists say the proposal doesn’t go far enough because it doesn’t set specific habitat boundaries.

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Source: U.S. Fish & WildlifeService, Pacific Region;

Graphics reporting by SEEMA MEHTA / Los Angeles Times